


The Blood and the Bones

by ThisMessIsAPlace (McFearo)



Series: Son Of A Gun [2]
Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Cuddlin' and kissin' in the Divide, First foray into writing Ulysses's voice, M/M, shameless fluff, zero plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 01:22:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11681070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/McFearo/pseuds/ThisMessIsAPlace
Summary: There's something in that which Ulysses likes too much.Makes things in him twist, like falling, and it'd be a lie to say he doesn't like that, too. Just thought he was too old for it. Too broken. Too much of too little.





	The Blood and the Bones

**Author's Note:**

> For day 1 of [this Month of Fanfiction](http://joufancyhuh.tumblr.com/post/162724115417/yourlocalpriestess-and-i-have-come-together-to) challenge.

Nothing alive in the Divide but out of spite.  
  
Even him, once.  
  
All that still lives only lives to take or hurt as it can. Nothing here means kindness on anyone. He knows that. _Intimately_. Used the biting edge of it to whittle instincts he already had into something finer and sharper. Awake or asleep, it pulls him taut the moment he feels a change; under the howling wind, and the distant screams, and the deafening silence, a sound that breaks that monotony means trouble.  
  
Footsteps. No ambiguity in that.  
  
Spine goes straight and stiff when the wind carries them to him. Hand darts for Old Glory. Just for a moment, just one breath, before familiarity sinks in and sorts it all out.  
  
Snap of a hard heel on stone, in time with a metallic chime. Hard clicks and bright jingles at the ends of long, easy strides. He knows the rhythm. Eases the tension out of him in fits and starts -- slower than how it came on, but steady. He stills on his bed roll, though he'd hardly moved.  
  
Courier wears spurs on his boots that click with every step. He doesn't know why, nothing practical in it. Doubly odd for a man who reads tracks in soft earth, who sticks to rocky paths to leave none, who minds the wind and the sun and the flights of birds. Leaves his fingerprints on his destinations, without doubt; leaves traces of himself the places he goes that'll be seen and felt for miles and miles, nations and worlds. But no tracks between, no trails that can be followed by short of the keenest.  
  
And yet for all that care, if he's ever _quiet_ Ulysses will be certain he's gone and died for keeps this time.  
  
Walker whistles a greeting through the gap in his teeth when he sees Ulysses is awake: three notes, loud and pure. It isn't necessary. For better or worse, Ulysses spares him his attention freely.  
  
It's a break from the silences in which he speaks only to himself. There's nothing new to learn in them. Precious little new to learn from Walker either, depending on the mood in which he comes to him, but Ulysses can be different a while when he's not alone with himself. That holds value enough in fair trade for the disruptions.  
  
"I'm thinkin' New Reno, see if that diner's still there," the Courier announces without preamble, picking up the thread of another conservation as though there aren't weeks and miles on him since they left off. "Fried rattlesnake on a potato bun wi'-- uuuuuuuh... Think it's like _may-o-naise_. Only, I ain't never had the real McCoy. So's I couldn' really tell ya how it holds up, like. 'Sreal good though." He sits down with his back to the bed roll and the man lying on it.  
  
Mm... no. Not quite _sits_. His legs are simply not beneath him anymore, and he allows gravity to do as it wills with the rest of him, heedless of jostling Ulysses.  
  
Two sets of instincts are quiet: Walker's fear to have anyone at his back or in his blind spot; Ulysses's startle at the sudden contact. Somewhere down the road a steady trust made them three, all told. Doesn't know what to do with that if he thinks on it too long.  
  
"Next time I'll come wi' lumber an' such," the Courier says conversationally when Ulysses adds nothing. "Cause if you ain't gonna come wi' me, you kin do better for yerself out here than a sleepin' bag onna side of a bluff. Livin' on the edge, aincha--" a contemplative pause as he struggles with his boots. "That weren't meant to be a pun."  
  
"Building me a shelter, Courier?" Ulysses prompts groggily, grabbing onto a waypoint on the meandering path of Walker's speech. Every bit of the Courier is prone to wander if he's not tethered down -- body, mind and spirit. Seldom this scattered, though. Nerves, perhaps. But his hands and voice are steady, always are. Almost always.  
  
"Might could," he says airily, and rests his hands on his knees. One boot still on, one holy sock on display, jacket falling off one bony shoulder. "If you ain't gonna come wi' me. I'm thinkin' New Reno."  
  
"Mm. Said that," observes Ulysses.  
  
"I know I said it. Jus' dunno if you was listenin'."  
  
Walker cracks a crooked grin at him over his shoulder and struggles to get his jacket the rest of the way off. Ulysses reaches one hand up, grips the collar and tugs it down. Difficult to watch a grown man flail like that.  
  
"Only, I ain't been that way in ages an' ages. Diner could still be there -- name of _Morton's Fork_ , damnedest thing. Just as like to not be there, though. People change. Places change.  
  
"Be differ'nt when we get there than last I seen it," he goes on. "Like seein' somewhere new without goin' too far at all. By _our_ standards, leastways. Week-an'-a-day from Primm, give or take, we keep at a good clip--"  
  
" 'We,'" Ulysses notes. He pulls the discarded jacket away so the man can't find a means to entangle himself in it again. Be impressive to see, he'll grant. Limbs too long to keep in order. " ' _Our_.'"  
  
"If you'll come, I mean." He remembers the other boot, or chooses to. Just to not look invested in the answer. In the way Ulysses drapes the jacket over his own chest like a ragged green blanket. Too tired to fold it or toss it aside. Too tired, for much longer now, to pretend it's beyond him to still be human.  
  
It's faded from sun and wash. Clean enough. Clean as it can be, considering. Soaked in plain lye soap so as to not take on a scent; smells of earth, and hot asphalt, and Walker, though they're all much the same. There's something in that which Ulysses likes too much.  
  
Makes things in him twist, like falling, and it'd be a lie to say he doesn't like that, too. Just thought he was too old for it. Too broken. Too much of too little.  
  
"Might consider it," Ulysses concedes at long last, committing to nothing. The jangle of spurs subsides and the boots are aligned neatly out of the way. Down to t-shirt and flannel, Walker looks too thin when he turns sidelong to look at Ulysses properly. "Work to do here," he adds sternly. Lays down the foundation of his way out now, early on, to point to later when he has to disappoint. If he has to.  
  
"Work needin' done within two steps, any which-a-way you go, I've found." The Courier favors him with a wry smile, and burgeoning crow's feet show his age even when the gap-toothed grin takes years away. He unfolds himself onto the bed roll. A mile of bone and sinew winding out at Ulysses's side, facing him. "Cain't spit, but I hit someone wi' re _quests_."  
  
"Sleep on it," Ulysses grumbles, suppressing a yawn. "Maybe tomorrow."  
  
"It's tomorrow right now, idjit."  
  
"The next tomorrow, then," he teases, "should we both see it."  
  
"You doubt?"  
  
He says nothing, just pulls Walker nearer. All that bone disappears, replaced with something lazy and pliant. There are no surprises for them in the taste of each other's mouths, nothing more exotic than themselves. But he'd be hard pressed to recall the last time either of them wanted something so simple and got it, too.  
  
Walker grins against his lips. "That a kiss 'yes' or a kiss 'no'?"  
  
"Ezra. _Sleep_."  
  
They do.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say "hi" on [Tumblr](http://atomicreactor.tumblr.com)!


End file.
